Dear Comrade:
You have often read the words _organic_ and _inorganic_ but did you ever
stop to think of the meaning of these words? We say a body is organic--a
rock is inorganic; one grows from within, the other is built from
without. A tree is organic; it grows. A house is inorganic; it is built.
The house was never a baby house, growing from a tiny house to a large
one. But the tree was once a baby tree, a sapling, and grew branch by
branch to its present height. So we have two classes of things--those
which grow and those which are made.
Language belongs to the class of things which grows. It is organic. We
have even used the same terms in speaking about language that we use in
talking of a tree. We use the words ROOT, STEM and BRANCH to describe
its growth.
Language, too, has its different terms of life like a tree, its youth,
its maturity, its old age, its death.
So we have dead languages like Latin and Greek--languages which are no
longer living,--no longer serving mankind. But these dead languages have
left living children, languages that have descended from them.
The Italian language for example is the child, the descendant of the
classical Latin. We have many words in our English language from these
dead languages. About five-sevenths of the words in our English are from
these classical languages. The remaining two-sevenths are from the
Anglo-Saxon. We use the Anglo-Saxon words more frequently, however, in
our every day speech.
And it is interesting to note that our best poetry--that which stirs our
blood and touches our hearts--is written in the strong forceful
Anglo-Saxon words.
These words we are studying have been through some interesting
experiences as they have passed from race to race down to us and the
history of life is mirrored in their changes. How much more interesting
they seem when we know something of their sources, just as we are more
interested in a man when we know something of his boyhood and youth and
the experiences through which he has passed.
You may think that the study of verbs is rather difficult and involved,
but it is more simple in English than in any other language. There are
fewer changes in the verb form in order to express time and person. Do
not rely on the memorizing of the rules. Rules never made one a fluent
speaker. Write sentences in which the correct form is used. Read aloud
from the best authors until the sound of the words is familiar and they
come readily to the tongue. We have used for the exercises in these
lessons excerpts from the best authors.
Study these exercises carefully and note the use of the different verbs
especially, this week. Verbs, like all else, are yours to command.
Command them.
Yours for Education,